


Solace

by JanuaryBlue, shiei



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Flagrant use of fire and ice metaphors, Passionate workaholics trying very hard to express their feelings, Relationship Study, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:28:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23067013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanuaryBlue/pseuds/JanuaryBlue, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiei/pseuds/shiei
Summary: “Perhapsyoucould stare atme, for once.”“I could stare, for once.” She has to resist the urge to laugh, “Love, I amalwayswatching you.”
Relationships: Igeyorhm/Lahabrea (Final Fantasy XIV)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	Solace

He had been eyeing her blouse all day.

Standing here, now, with one end of the bow twirled around his ring finger, Lahabrea realises just how delicate the material really is. A fabric spun from the finest silk, undoubtedly put together by a most lavish designer label. She has quite the penchant for creature comforts and it does please him to see it, recognize it, whenever it appears.

Ever since _that_ day – an honest mistake which had borne the direst of consequences – Igeyorhm has toiled ceaselessly, in the unspoken effort to redeem herself that no one needed to hear.

And her efforts would be the envy of any employer, but their shared struggle was a difficult one indeed. But she’s a soul filled with fervour and dedication, always willing to go the extra mile and do whatever was necessary to meet the deadline, secure the contract.

Needless to say, such a woman as her – she deserves nothing but the best.

The best clothes, the best comforts; the best colleagues and the best efforts. The best partner. The best relationship.

The _best_ relationship, well… he may be fooling himself, with the term, but their arguments, though constant, are always filled with passion and genuine affection. Opposing elements that counteract directly, and yet still somehow manage to coexist, thriving. Only one such as he could keep up with her; and that knowledge does satisfy him.

Between all of them, there is no one as willing to sacrifice their all for their work, but her – and him. The ones who throw themselves in, with equal and contradictory passions, like fire and ice, intense and yet affecting their duties and those around them in drastically different ways.

One might call it a match made in heaven – or spawned straight from hell; no one could be blamed from thinking the later, with their occasional and often explosive conflicts.

And are they _ever_ a sight to behold – Emet-Selch had once quipped about selling tickets; Elidibus had informed them, after, in a perfectly neutral tone, that no one would be allowed to watch company disputes, much less profiteer from them, and the fact that he bothered to say it was somehow more humiliating than the original remark.

Igeyorhm was not one to hold her tongue in front of others, thoroughly unafraid of cutting the Speaker down to size whenever their visions did not align. (They rarely did.) In an admittedly vain attempt at diplomacy – never his strong suit, he does admit – Lahabrea often attempted to moderate himself. Knowing when to bite back and when not to speak is a fine art and he would never ask Elidibus; thusly the Speaker struggles on his own – learns her, on his own.

He was more… _selective_ with his choice of words to her, took extra care in what he chose to say. With such an attitude it was likely news to no one that they were _involved_ , though none had made mention of it yet. Why should they? They were all bound by the deepest and most terrible of oaths, sworn together in absolute allegiance and devotion to the… cause.

It changes nothing; still, he comes to her. Still he is granted the pleasure of being here, in her (their) apartment, marvelling at the softness of her blouse, the material making his fingers feel callous in comparison.

“Well?” her voice is clear cut and not a little impatient, “Go on.”

He does not appreciate being interrupted in the midst of thought; she must know. There is an order to his affection, to how he approaches this affair; Lahabrea has his _methods,_ in all things, and despises being rushed.

She continues, “If you do not wish to do this, I am certain I can secure an alternative partner. Nabriales would be a willing volunteer.”

“ _Nabriales_? Of all people?!” He snaps, not believing what he hears, “After his errors set our major project back _for months_? HR still owes us **weeks** of time in lieu for the amount of overtime we had to pull, thanks to his stupidity. And you expect me to believe you would go to bed with someone so unworthy.”

Expression unchanging, impassive – cool as ice – she extends elegant arms to wrap around his neck, applying no pressure, bringing herself no closer to this sparking flame she had so intentionally ignited.

It is a moment worth savouring; Lahabrea is the most beautiful, the most attractive and burns the brightest when he is impassioned. He is the most _himself._

This is how she likes him; how he naturally is, his feelings (for her) on clear display, unrestrained.

“What _do_ you believe, _Lahabrea_?” She articulates each syllable of his name with utmost precision and it sends a shiver down his spine.

Just brushing her lips against him as she speaks, watching intently as her own special flame lit and spat embers and danced for her. “Perhaps I intend to use him for stress relief. Put that _slimy_ mouth of his to good use, for once.”

Her voice dips an octave lower, “Do you believe he would refuse?”

Finally, he tugs at the bow of her blouse, empty threats fallen on deaf ears as he sets himself back to his work. Darting, a hand reaches her shoulder to take both her wrists in captivity, pulling them above her head. With a single smooth movement, he slides the loosened blouse over her head, not once allowing it to catch on her or drag on her hair at all in the motion.

With the top set aside, Lahabrea steps back, giving her space to unfurl. Relishing the sight of her slightly dishevelled appearance, the glimpse of vulnerability that is on her as fleeting as snowfall, as delicate as the smallest and most intricate of flakes.

A sense of fulfillment, of overwhelming satisfactions warms his chest; she is his alone to unwrap, and only before him does she allow herself to bloom.

This feeling is one he has no intention of giving voice to, his speaker’s tongue uncharacteristically stilled.

What _can_ he say? To put it into words would be to do these feelings a disservice. He knows how he feels, she knows how she feels – and together, they might know one another, know these things which human speech cannot convey.

It’s in the touch of his hands as they find their way up her arms, her skin soft and cool to the touch. Smooth under his palm like a snowdrift. His hands find their rest on her shoulders, sharp and angled under his fingers, and draw her straight into the heat of his embrace.

At once her lips are on his, distance discarded for intimacy. Kissing tenderly at first, then with a fervour he returns with equal vigour, hands straying to cup her face, tousled locks bunching up beneath his grasp.

As always, she asserts herself, setting the pace for Lahabrea to follow; for her, he does with so with pleasure, weakly disguised as reluctance. She parts her lips and he waits a moment before doing the same, unwilling to appear overeager. 

For that minor act of defiance, she catches his tongue and drags her teeth against it, earning her the first strangled moan of many she intends to draw from his unwilling mouth. For someone known endearingly as the Speaker, he makes such an _effort_ to remain silent. 

But Igeyorhm was never one to back down from a challenge. Certainly not here and now – not when she has so many ways to make him _sing._

She draws him into her mouth, sucks along the slick muscle, dousing the sting of her bite. At her mercy, his mouth goes slack, tongue slight with her taste, salivating for more. He is afforded no opportunity to engage, to return the favour; she tears cruelly away from the kiss, remaining in his arms only barely.

Or perhaps not.

The next thing he knows, Igeyorhm has shoved him back to lie on the bed; almost immediately, she pounces on top, mounting him at the waist. Sly hands slip under his black turtleneck to tickle his navel before she rakes her fingers up his chest. He has to fight the urge to squirm as they pass over his nipples, already pebbled from arousal; vulnerable in the extreme to her icy touches.

Her eyes smooth over him like molten ice, chilling even as it burns. Taking in his flustered expression and sprawled golden hair. The small braid in his hair, all but loosed from its ribbon. He watches back with eyes weighing heavily of desire, her signature blue tint smudged all over his mouth. Thoroughly unkempt.

She does wonder what their colleagues would think, were they to see him in his current _state_. Lahabrea, the esteemed Speaker, their _executive_ , coming undone from her kiss, from the barest of touches, lipstick on his face and blushing from ear to ear. He is a beautiful man, and he looks like a disaster in her bed, and Igeyorhm has always had a penchant for disasters, martyr that she is.

Grinding down, she sucks her lip, watching his eyes fix on her mouth as she savours what taste is left of him. 

“ _Pent up_ , are we?” She doesn’t quite mean to ridicule him, but it does come out a touch smug. His arousal is painfully obvious underneath her, giving off an affirmative twitch as she brushes over it briefly.

Without giving him the chance to respond, she snakes around to squeeze the tent at the front of his pants, leaving him reeling, head thrown back as he winces for the sudden stimulation. She chuckles at the minor overreaction, loosening her grip slightly before closing in around him again, grasping at the hilt. This time, he cannot restrain his moan, however warped it is by his panting; a more glorious sound, she has yet to hear.

To be able to watch him fall apart, light up and burn under her touch, hear and feel him shudder as pleasure ignites from their contact – it is an experience beyond compare.

She continues to work over his arousal through his trousers, clutching, pumping, pressing firm on hard, covered flesh.

“You have been watching me all day, from the moment I walked into the office,” Her eyes remain fixed on his face, watching with rapt attention and delight as it contorts in pleasure at her attentions, “Did you want me this badly for _all that while?_ ”

“I did – no such thing,” He remarks, unwilling to entertain her mocking, only barely stumbling between pants. “Your imagination is – it outstrips you.”

Silly, stubborn man.

“Is that so?” She seizes him harder, imparting delicious sensation with the tensing of each finger; and oh, how he _yowls_ for her, the coils in his stomach tightening frantically in excitement as the pressure teeters on the edge of pain, “How you _choked_ at the sight of me, this morning – that must have been my imagination as well, then.”

He groans at the memory of it. She had well and truly caught him off guard; striding through the halls in something so _sheer_ , leaving so little to the imagination. Wearing a matching, high-waisted pencil skirt; one that hugged over the curve of her hips and the dip of her waist so closely that the urge to run his hands over it had nearly overcome him.

“Well?”

He is doomed, then. Contesting her is a losing battle; and were he able to, it would not change his all too obvious arousal. How close he is to ruining his pants, even when she’s barely touched him at all.

Surrender is becoming more and more tempting a prospect by the moment; but she would not be satisfied with a victory so easily won. Nor does his pride permit it, quite yet.

“And if I was?” He challenges, lowly, and the way her stormy eyes darken in desire at the sound of it draws further delight – further _fire,_ in his chest. “Would you rather I did _not_?”

Surely, she cannot hold it against him; it is only natural for him to find her attractive. Their relationship is not established, exactly – but she knows what she is to him, and he to her. It would be absurd to mock one’s partner for an attraction that was so obviously mutual.

“Perhaps _you_ could stare at _me_ , for once.” He murmurs, turning his head at the note of neediness that had unintentionally coloured his voice. Doing whatever he can to avoid her gaze.

Igeyorhm pauses, stunned by the sudden change of tone – the honest vulnerability, the clear desire for affection. Lahabrea did not show such things often, and rarer did he express any need for them, no matter how he felt it as much as any other. He may just be particularly frustrated, today.

Releasing him, she leans forward, edges her face just up to his, relishing how he retreats, almost imperceptibly, pressing his head back into the pillow. A man of great power and intellect, reduced to scooting away pathetically as she advanced.

“I could stare, for once.” She has to resist the urge to laugh, “Love, I am **always** watching you.”

Her breasts flatten against his chest as she drapes herself over him. Even his breath is stilled, halted by her proximity, her scent enough to drive him to dizziness.

Truly; he is captive already. Since long ago.

“Be it at your office or mine, out in the open or in meetings... And yes, even when you insist on _arguing_ with me like the stubborn fool you are, perpetually impressed with your own _ingenuity_.” She really is a living distraction, especially now with her lips tracing the arch of his jaw. He can feel her body heat seeping through the thin material of his top to mingle with his own.

“I am always watching, love. I could hardly miss one who shines so brightly, burns so…” The word that next emerges from her is almost bitter. “ _Passionately._ I hide my admiration far less than you hide your lust. You are simply not observant enough to notice.”

He opens his mouth for a rebuttal, but his words, usually so ready and eager to jump to his defence, betray him. Cool logic collapsing his argument in his mind even as he tries to form it.

What she says is true. It had always been her who showed interest, who initiated things. He would balk at being called ‘passive’, but that same pride forced him often into inaction. For as long as he could recall, he had waited for others to come to him, _baited_ them even, to show interest in what he had to say.

Igeyorhm had been the one to instigate things. It took only one kiss, on a night like any other – a long night in the office, naturally – and afterwards this affair had fallen easily into their lives. She had been the one to propose to Emet and Elidibus that they work as partners; arranging for them to spend even more time together without arousing suspicion.

She had more often than not been the one to lead him to bed. In intimate matters as well as on those nights he became too engrossed in his work to focus on anything else. Even her.

And still she continues. Leading away, pulling and pushing him around, because _she knows_ he is not inclined to act on things himself. Something she has never held against him, not a word of bother or complaint; she loves – cares – in _taken_ enough with him that she does not permit such a thing to affect their relationship.

“Lahabrea?”

She calls to him and he blinks, pulled from his thoughts by the sound of a voice melodic yet regal. Possessed of a cool elegance that barely belied the strength of her passions; but with his name on her lips, her stormy eyes open to his gaze, the depth of her feelings is clear.

The depth of her feelings has _always_ been clear. She had made it so; Igeyorhm is not a woman who permits her lover even a hint of doubt.

So he turns his focus back to her despite his vulnerability, laid out on his back before her. Feeling bare before her inquisitive eyes. But to careful evaluation, beyond that intensity that she always wore, her anxiety is plain. Subtly painted over beautiful features like streaks on a mask – or cracks.

What a fool he is.

He reaches out to her, the back of his fingers ghosting over her cheek, in reassurance. Like handling glass, strokes delicate and unassuming, he offers her his love. She responds with a sigh, leaning into his caress.

Lahabrea is not a man who shows affection; it is her privilege and her right to be the one and only exception. She _basks_ in his warm glow, the gentle pulse of heat against her skin, soft hands that burn lightly against her like tongues of flame, lapping at her lust.

It is rare for her to be on the receiving end of his attention like this, with him reaching out to her. Rarer still for him to show it so freely, with such certainty in his eyes, passions stoked beyond her reckoning. It is all too tempting to follow his will to wherever it would lead.

As always, the martyr’s fate is to be consumed by the flames.

This time, when they kiss, it is he who presses his lips upon hers. He, whose tongue flicks out in request, lapping at the line between her lips, and she greets it with her brand of fervour. The taste of him lingers in her mouth like molasses, sweet and rich, and she drinks him in, letting his flavour steep through her entirely.

He teases thin straps down her shoulder, taking a simple delight in the sight of her camisole falling and pooling around her waist. In response she shoves up his top, revealing a toned, if lean, chest and abdomen. The sudden exposure to the open air teases a shiver down his back that she traces with a stray fingertip.

The feel of his skin along her hand, hot and flushed at her attentions, is heavenly. And it is nothing still to how his hands clamp suddenly about her shoulders, tugging her down beside him. Swinging himself over to straddle her, positions reversed, inverted.

The haughty creature. He acts as though he has done nothing out of the ordinary – when his eyes meets hers he neither flinches nor wavers, holding her gaze as he hooks her waistband and pulls down skirt and undergarments alike in one smooth motion. Smirking at her like that.

Her cheeks have been on fire ever since he touched them.

And _oh,_ this fire does consume her. He lights the spark between her legs with tongue and lips and teeth – daring creature, since when had he been so bold? – and when she twitches and shudders at the flame lapping over her he holds her legs down, apart, pressing burning fingertips into her hips hard enough to bruise.

He may be the speaker but she is the one who cries out first, he is the celebrant but she lavishes him in praise, hands carding through hair soft and bright like sunshine pooling in her palms. Lahabrea speaks his litany between her thighs, against her sex, words hot and heavy and lost to her arousal, humming through the whole of her body.

Only when he draws the highest cries from her, when her voice breaks and melts in her throat, raw like her arousal beneath her lips that pulses in release – only then does he permit himself to draw back, to bare his own eagerness and edge himself towards her.

She doesn’t hesitate to wrap her legs around him, pull him in, against her. Returning his smirk as he brushes over her, wet and slick with his attentions and completely unashamed; Lahabrea would have something to say about that, were he not dying of want, himself.

So easily does he plunge into her, feeling legs tighten, arms reach out in a grasping embrace. Fingers cold and clawing sharp lines over his back, scratching over skin in shards of ice pleasure. Her lips parted and panting and eyes gazing deep into his, so filled with _want_ and _satisfaction –_

He cannot bear to look at her anymore; he dives in to devour her scream in time with his hand darting to the source of her pleasure, rubbing fiercely enough to send her shaking, shuddering, tightening around him. Dragging him towards his own peak in her brutal climb.

This time, in their release, as in all other things – they are one.

**Author's Note:**

>  **JanuaryBlue**  
>  I'm not much of an editor but when I my friend mentioned writing this and having trouble finishing it up and feeling confident the final product, I was happy to offer assistance. It was fun to work through the original draft and try to improve upon it and strengthen the highlights that were already there, and I hope I've done it justice for you all!
> 
> You can check out more about this particular AU, from Emet/Reader flash takes to LahaIggy hcs, as well as a bit of background for the entire setting and related ideas, feel free to check it out on twitter; split into [Part 1](https://twitter.com/i/events/1216576216230068224) and [Part 2](https://twitter.com/i/events/1236672167439257601) because of twitter being finicky XD
> 
> **shiei**  
>  “Let Lahabrea and Igeyorhm be happy!!” was the mantra in my head when I worked on this. Modern AU has more or less become an opportunity for me to give them the happiness that they deserve, but never had the chance to enjoy. The way they met their end in canon was simply too insignificant, too abrupt. Very unbefitting of 2 characters with such fascinating backstories, but that is a topic for another day...
> 
> Anyways, it's been an absolute pleasure (and honour!) to work with Jan on this story. I never thought the day would come where I’d get the chance to collaborate with one of my most admired authors! This story never would’ve seen completion without her, so I’m beyond grateful for her contributions.
> 
> We hope you’ve enjoyed reading it too!


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